"blocky" poems
the electricity runs through our veins
and past the street signs we rumble by
in the car you stole, we go fifty above the speed limit,
the roof of the car is the noir sky above
and the midnight rain pelts our upturned faces
the dancing drops of water drip onto our smiling lips
the sound of the sky collapsing
echoes the flashes that streak the sky,
the flickering light casts paved roads with a brief brightness
(as if god were wearing light up sketchers)
the lacy brallette that wears me
gives me the bravery to stand up in the speeding car
the velvet pants that ripple with the wind
drink up the nighttime rain
and the rare headlights race past us,
heading into homes and hearts
the mellow playlist that connects the aux cord to our ears blasts
so loud, we can no longer hear our insecurity
the mascara that once clung to my eyelashes
now streams down my face.
on a two way street,
we drive down the middle
unafraid in the face of direct dangers
so unaware of the towering empty skyscrapers
and instead highly exhilarated
from the street signs we drive by
too fast to read the blocky lettering
the road signs glint, smiling as we wave and reach towards them
the cigarettes you smoked are thrown through the open window,
still smothering slightly.
i can still taste the smoke on your lips
and your hand tucks my hair behind my ear
and as the wind objects and inhales
unreal in the hazy a.m. car trip
the tunnel rushes towards us,
and we both hold our breaths,
as if breathing would contaminate us.
the lights that glint, cast a yellow-white glow
and for once, i see you for who you are
a boy too buzzed to feel
a kid who only felt "sort of"
a person who couldn't heal
and a lover who could never give love
Jul 11, 2018
Jul 11, 2018 at 3:34 AM UTC
A NEW GAME OF BLOCKS AND MINING,
I STAND ON A SHORE OF SAND.
I LIKE IT; IT DOESN'T GET IN MY SQAURE FEET.
I LOOK THROUGH PIXAL EYES
AROUND AT MY SURROUNDINGS;
THERE'S AN OCEAN OF UNMOVING BLUE,
A MOUNTAIN OF STONE AND CAVES
BEYOND A FOREST OF BUMPY GREEN.
I THEN TURN AND THEN,
I SMACK A TREE WITH MY SQUARE HAND.
I EXPECT PAIN BUT THERE IS NONE
AND THE RESULT IS A TINY BLOCK OF DARK WOOD
FLOATING A GAP IN THE TREE IT ONCE FILLED.
I STEP FORWARD TO COLLECT IT,
BUT IT FLIES TOWARD ME AND INTO ME;
I WILL IT TO APPEAR IN MY HAND AND IT DOES.
MY EYES GROW BIGGER AND MY BLOCKY SMILE GROWS
BIGGER THAN THE PIXELS THAT MAKE UP MY FACE.
I RUN AROUND, COLLECTING WOOD
AND LAUGHING WITH A CRAZED FACE.
AS I CATCH MY BREATH, I NOTICE IT'D GETTING DARK
AND I TURN TO SEE A HORRIBLE FACE OF GREEN
AND I HEAR A HISSING NOISE.
I CAN ONLY CRY OUT AS THE THING EXPLODES,
WITH A SICKING EXPLOSION AND A LOOK
ON MY CUBE HEAD THAT SAYS
“F*** YOU, CREEPER!”
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 3:53 PM UTC
Who’s to say how
He might come back for a second
inhumanely heaped-up helping,
if we grant that immensity
of our assumption He did come
kingly first into this inside-
out size from a do-you-miss-me-
yet’s mirthfully mythical realm
I have seen Him
lurking in a particle-board fine
finish on the thin outer membranes
of our estranged and better faces;
He’s Higgs-boson omnipresent,
but far too theoretical
for our broadly practical, turned-
away gazes to rediscover
There He is now
rising in the favela’s gap-
toothed grins with fabulously naughty
corners this glee-pawed grandpa twists
using cur jests his ***** charges
imagine as flightless quarrels
grey-hooded pigeons would gaggle
were they over-stuffed on golden grain
And there again
on a Calcutta mound’s cluttered
conic end, smog-like He slowly lifts
with the crust-gnawed, razor-wire crimps
of a soup-can’s unconsummated lid
as dainty fingers crawl in toward
a gelatinous glob still clinging
to the powerful pretense it’s meat
And there once more,
conceding oms, He restless flickers
at the margins of blocky beige
Beijing screens as crisply clicked clacks
circumnavigate the darkling
smooth patches and spit-spark a few
conscious drips to squiggle out from
the babble of noxious red seas
Emerged, this welp
won’t toddle off to dribble-stain
the dressy linens of a made-up
nanny’s well-mannered and ornate
evil; it will curl up instead,
a swaddled yawn with no yearn to
suckle under His real mother’s
gaping wide and grungy bloused best
Oct 20, 2010
Oct 20, 2010 at 11:04 AM UTC
Hard to swallow:
When they see you,
stretched languidly across the page,
frivolous in your expenditure of letters,
This is what you are to them.
Long and polysyllabic,
a frustrating combination of strange, small word-parts
And that Y (such an indecisive letter!):
flung in there so gracelessly.
You are repulsive to them;
You have broken their rhythm
of short, blocky words that trip off the tongue
with your sudden and awkward out-of-place-ness.
You are abhorrent to them;
You have blurred their strict margins
of male and female roles,
of pants and skirts,
with your little blip of existence,
mucking about in the wrong side of the clothes store.
You are an anomaly, a mistake, a mystery to them;
You are a *** to be located
A term to be defined
A word to be pronounced
A gender to be assigned
But I like you.
I like how your letters sprawl,
confident and self-sure.
I like how your attire causes others to gawk
and reorder their worlds.
I like how your legs look in that tux,
your eyes in that dress.
How the long swoops of your g and your y
echo the way the ends of your undone tie drape from your collar:
Elegantly.
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 3:39 PM UTC
Doing laundry at night
A place down the street from me
In between a liquor store and a save-a-lot foods
Eyes buried in a new poetry book
and the washing machine’s timer
In my periphery
A little blonde girl sits next to me
And says very clearly,
“I wish someone had a quarter
For some candy”
She opens every metal spout
Tries every blocky butterfly key
Repeats herself, repeats herself, repeats herself,
She is with two men who keep calling her over
Until they don’t notice
And she comes to me again
This time her hand to her ear
Whether there really is a phone there
I can’t tell
She says,
“Yeah mommy
I really just want a quarter for some candy
Uncle J won’t give me one
And daddy isn’t listening
I wish you could have stayed in San Diego longer
I miss you already
Can you tell daddy to give me a quarter?
Are you coming back soon?
Mommy
I still want to talk to you
Just a quarter
Just a minute
Don’t hang up
K?”
I know this is barely halfway between Halloween and Christmas
I also know how long that sweetness really lasts
Not nearly long enough
And as supplies dwindle
It all becomes bitter
I leave a few quarters on the bench where I was sitting
Act like I don’t notice they fell out of my pocket
She acts like she doesn’t notice them there
We watch each other like adults watch the washing machine timers
So no one steals their property when they ding
I leave
And she does whatever she does
And that sweetness
Never lasts
Dec 23, 2011
Dec 23, 2011 at 7:10 AM UTC
***
Cabin Boy
-------------------------------------
Wondering memories of wild adolescence,
Flash before me like a mental Rolodex
Reverberating daze,
Time cannot take away.
A fifteen–year–old,
Broken neck calypso.
Gazing through the jungle-o window
Unequipped to fathom what was about to happen.
I saw the moon in your eyes,
And knew;
You smile in the way that islands do,
And the zephyrs planned to bring your love back to me, too.
You were everything I imagined.
Sunlight on a dismal day,
The lone palm in the tropic heat,
A boyish grin that made my flowers bloom;
You were the Cabin Boy.
Realizing, all you can be at 23
is yourself.
And I am the wanderer's wandering daughter.
The pretty little minor that come hell or high water,
You broke California law for.
I waited at your f i n g e r
t
i
p
s
Just his little Pisces ********
Who didn't exist till 1996.
An inevitable source of panic that would rise in his eyes
Every time he kissed,
Her Kona lips.
Until deciding he had to leave,
Claiming island fever, on his way out the back door.
Lost as a half-gone waning moon.
With only the ocean’s waves continuous roar
Sun burnt, white foam, salt spray,
Condemned - to an inevitable end
Unable to prevail past the break at your soul's cliff edge.
I grab a raft to float;
In the deep waters of the heart.
Somewhere in between the no -
longer & the still -
to-come
Washed upon my soul’s sand.
Reaching out with new green shoots -
Resurrecting the chthonic biome
From deep within the molten core
Till the blocky incline fell away,
And I found myself;
On the surface of a lake of solidified lava.
Sep 16, 2017
Sep 16, 2017 at 9:59 PM UTC
Sonnets and ballads
Same length sentences
And blocky form
Used to describe you
Is like creating the Sistine Chapel
With paint by numbers
You fit no form, no pentameter
And while hips rhymes with lips
And yours are gorgeous
There no rhyme nor reason to Love
Sonnets and ballads are beautiful
In the way any SoCal girl is
Bleached blonds with big *****
Fit the paper definition of beauty
But paper wilts and crumbles
My Woman Stands strong
They can have their silicone, their plastic
Because when we touch, I feel something real
Remember I Love You, I whisper
Like You needed the reminder
But the smile tells me
The words hit home
And as meaningful as words can be
When we’re together
It’s the absence of them that’s beautiful
Lips are for kissing
Touches and caresses
And looks and smiles
Are what tell You
I Love You
Mar 13, 2010
Mar 13, 2010 at 2:43 PM UTC
Down the lawn's decrescendo,
on the curb, a blocky Mercedes,
older than sound. I pull behind it, drop my things
like kick drums to the ground. The door
opens: a chorus of
can I help, what can I take?
And the quarter-rests of a fight
interrupted. The whole affair like
a sore wrist.
He has a violinist's chin, soft but
pallid, pocked, from losing
a battle with teenage skin, and
here is the ochre noise of his voice
a can on rocks; my father's was a stone in
a guitar.
So this is the new arrangement.
A leitmotif that trails at her heel, that tears at
every quiet measure; the whole hall
hears her uneasy with the next note.
This is no melody, I know,
but it is the new arrangement.
When she is old and failed,
her conductor's elbow fallen mutely to her side,
what will she think of
the first song she ever made?
Feb 23, 2010
Feb 23, 2010 at 10:39 AM UTC
Sonnets and ballads
Same length sentences
And blocky form
Used to describe you
Is like creating the Sistine Chapel
With paint by numbers
You fit no form, no pentameter
And while hips rhymes with lips
And yours are gorgeous
There no rhyme nor reason to Love
Sonnets and ballads are beautiful
In the way any SoCal girl is
Bleached blonds with big *****
Fit the paper definition of beauty
But paper wilts and crumbles
My Woman Stands strong
They can have their silicone, their plastic
Because when we touch, I feel something real
Remember I Love You, I whisper
Like You needed the reminder
But the smile tells me
The words hit home
And as meaningful as words can be
When we’re together
It’s the absence of them that’s beautiful
Lips are for kissing
Touches and caresses
And looks and smiles
Are what tell You
I Love You
Mar 13, 2010
Mar 13, 2010 at 2:43 PM UTC
Destiny
i think I’m in love with you
your freckles placed in all the perfect places
i have never laid eyes on anyone as beautiful as you
your belly, your kisses,
i want to make you my mrs.
everything about you radiates like sunlight,
bright, the light of my life
maybe i knew i was in love with you
when we snuck into the city pool
the different evening hues of blues reflected
onto the most beautiful face God ever created
tomboy, you exude confidence
you’re my destiny
my excellence, my queen my princess
your eyes, sea specked emerald
your hair, damp and curly
you.
your culture, you represent
your skin, you take pride in
you.
your tattoos, like braille under my fingertips
goddess of the moon
i love you, i belong to you
maybe i knew i loved you
when we baked apple pies to have a picnic,
(i still have your floral blouse,)
and you rowed us out to the rivers
between the mountains behind your house
when we were boating, floating, breath holding,
you need love to feel alive
and i need you to love being alive
you are so free, a butterfly, the wind, my high
maybe i knew when we stayed up watching Pokemon
on an ancient glowing box, the ones that have VHS slots
not quite a television
the ones that say play in blocky letters
where we would sit and watch in nothing but our oversized sweaters
your energy,
your hands between my thighs
the days we would eat fries, through the window,
watching the sky pass by
there are many things about you,
you are unapologetic, i admire that
you have me under your spell, witchcraft
maybe i knew when we clung to the end of the train
instead of paying two fifty for a ticket,
the wind whipping, slapping the hair into our faces, onto our lips
everyday we were together was an eclipse
our hearts practically mended into one
you were the most splendid, the most fun
maybe then i knew
ripped denim jeans, black belt
you’re my Calvin model
with a brush of your fingertips,
you could make me melt
the comic books spread messily but aesthetically
across the white bedsheets we lay on, unmovingly
in each others arms for days,
we had no price to pay
you are the most fabulous ***** in the room, i agree
no other could have what you have, you are someone i need
maybe i knew i loved you when the sun set,
as we watched on the roof tops of the endless new york skylines
you are a gorgeous woman, i agree
our chemistry,
the way you walk
your personality, i need to pause just thinking about you
your voice, your accent,
our matching checkered vans, our matching tattoos
i love you.
May 4, 2018
May 4, 2018 at 5:42 AM UTC
She noted, grimly cognizant of though unamused by the irony,
That her likeness, or something akin to that,
Appeared on the poster—a gray-clad strong and vibrant woman
Reaching, in concert with her comrades
(One woman in a white coat, a man in overalls and requisite cap,
Still another androgynous figure in a futuristic ensemble
Resembling some cross of a Western science fiction movie
And some cheap Petrograd-made tin foil)
Toward a hammer-and-sickle adorned moon
Soon to be conquered by a similarly festooned rocket ship.
She is no scientific apparatchik, no technically gifted party functionary;
It is her job to feed the canine occupant of this mission to the cosmos
(Two mutts from the Moscow streets, she confides to Ilysa,
One of the few co-workers who can be trusted with such a statement.)
The dog, she notes without any trace of rancor, eats quite well,
Better than she does in truth,
But it is a series of last meals for the condemned,
For there is no secret as to the dog’s eventual fate
(Poor cur, he has no idea he is doomed,
One of the scientists clucks sadly,
Though she simply shrugs in reply,
Knowing a test or a trap when she sees it,
Though she thinks to herself He is far from alone)
And, after she has cleaned up the remnants of the dog’s dinner,
She heads back to her one-room flat on the Yaseneavaya Boulevard,
Noting ruefully, as she ascends the crumbling, unsteady steps
Leading to her blocky, faceless building,
That the omnipresent klieg lighting of the street lamps
Serves to obscure any trace of the heavens in the night sky.
Jan 27, 2017
Jan 27, 2017 at 9:49 AM UTC
tap, tap, tap
a blocky symphony
surrounds the room
tap, tap, tap
a choreography of letters
dance in my mind
tap, tap, tap
the faint glow of the screen
invade my eyes
tap, tap, tap
tap, tap, tap
tap, tap, tap
Send
Apr 26, 2016
Apr 26, 2016 at 8:11 AM UTC
On-Hands
My hands have taught me so much
Scarred with experience
Callused, cracked and dry.
Strong,
Blocky in structure
Capable of destruction, but used for
Learning. The blind ***** protecting
My hands does much seeing, indeed.
They have a mind of their own.
Sometimes I have control, and
Other times I let them finger
Things out on their own.
I asked my hands: “Who
Are you to intend?”
And the hands spoke thus:
“You should have read the
Manual.”
Feb 6, 2014
Feb 6, 2014 at 12:27 PM UTC
Crunch of gravel, conveying a mixed beat
Of some brisk and some merely wandering feet,
Rushing fountain in the distance
Gliding cool water slips silently beneath.
I lounge comfortably under this tree,
Gaze wand’ring from blocky buildings to sky,
Wearing playful cologne and expensive shoes,
Completely invisible to the passerby.
A muted flush of cherry-blossom clouds,
Reminds me of a time not so long ago,
Of wishing you were here to walk with me in this lovers’ park
Yet once again finding myself here alone.
Aug 16, 2018
Aug 16, 2018 at 11:37 PM UTC
They sit in the humblest of frames,
Faux wood-grained plastic grotesqueries
Purchased long ago from some doomed Grants or Bradlees,
Though one or two enjoy something nicer,
Left behind by some long-timer taking a buyout
Or a sympathetic youngster denied tenure
(She has, for the better part of three decades,
Cleaned up the detritus of middle-school children,
A bit stooped from the work,
Not to mention the burden
Of any number of she’s just or she’s only
Tossed like so much bric-a-brac in her direction.)
The approximations of old masters equally eclectic in origin:
One or two gallery-quality reproductions
Blithely abandoned by some haughty faculty matron
Mentoring children through noblesse oblige,
The odd promotional piece from a scholastic publisher,
Mostly things she has cut from magazines or discarded texts.
She studiously avoids pieces tending to the dark or muted,
No Stuart portraiture or pensive Vermeers;
She has a strong predilection for bold, boisterous Gaugins,
Mad cubist Picassos, lush Cezanne still-lifes,
Even the odd blocky *******
If you pressed her to explain her fetish
For the brightest of the great masters,
She would likely be at a loss to explain,
Having no academic bent for such things
(Though she has been known to curse the shortcomings
Of lithographers and pressmen under her breath)
And, as she freely admits, I’m not much good with words.
There would be the uncharitable suggestion
That their purpose is to mask cracks and pockmarks in her walls
(She has, to be sure, lived in a long series of such places)
But she has never, consciously or otherwise,
Used them for such pedestrian and utilitarian purposes;
They are, to her anyway, beautiful, and that is all they need be.
Dec 23, 2016
Dec 23, 2016 at 11:17 AM UTC
Beyond the veil
Pale wisps, shadows
You move, you fall
Parts are lost
Bowels loosen
But nothing comes out
Why the Silence?
You're a doll
In pieces
Blocky arms
Creaky hinges
You have no control
Keep Quiet
Breathe
Once
The windows
are covered.
Get up!
Collapse
Scattered
jacks
rattle
bones
Lost
Oct 26, 2019
Oct 26, 2019 at 2:43 PM UTC
Are my feet too big for my body?
Because I feel that the gravitational force on it
Centers me too hard to the ground
And it’s hard to lift either one to progress
Are my hands unilateral of each other?
Because it feels like every time that I reach for yours
The other one reaches for an object to grab hold of behind me
Just to keep me anchored
Are my eyes too wide for my blocky head?
Because I feel like whenever I have a goal and a focus
My limbs swing wildly at everything else
Grasping for distraction on anything of interest
Nov 6, 2018
Nov 6, 2018 at 8:01 PM UTC
Oh, cheese how I love you!
swiss, mozzarella, cheddar, or blue
stringy, blocky, or holey
you're the only delicacy for me
I love to sit and savor you
appreciating your taste as I chew
on a roller coaster my tastebuds you take
if I went without you my heart would break
And when I'm down to your last bite
my empty plate a horrific sight
I grab my keys and head to the store
needing just a little more
Aug 26, 2021
Aug 26, 2021 at 9:47 PM UTC
I've been
carving my name into everything permanent, like
the sidewalk behind the house of someone
I once knew,
trying to leave my mark on people the same way, as if
they were slabs of concrete that lay idle
waiting for passerby to scratch words into them;
I've been treating this whole thing like it should last,
like somehow being permanent erases all questions of
responsibility;
Like somehow, knowing my name is marked up somewhere
along the back alley of a person I don't even talk to anymore;
somehow, my life will add up to something -
somehow, the things that I do will matter.
But that isn't how it works, and you can't go around
writing things into people in hopes that they'll one day thank you
for leaving your mark on them.
Leaving marks isn't always a good thing.
Sometimes, you have to accept that no matter how good a thing is,
you erase its beauty by holding it -
sometimes,
people and places are simply meant to be let go, and this
is at once a beauty and a shout into the void
because I do not know how and when I will be remembered,
in what place, what time, what memory
but I hope that I amount to more
than a few words in blocky letters
scratched out hastily at 2am like a secret
that should never have been told.
I hope, somewhere,
I amount to more than that.
Mar 29, 2018
Mar 29, 2018 at 7:30 PM UTC
If you shatter me you could see right threw me.
If you cared to look, you would find
The decay of my heart manifesting on the floor.
If you cared to look you would see my hands,
Drawn thin and white knuckled
Grasping
Grasping for you
---
A nest of small tinder laying in a blackened pit,
Surrounded by large blocky logs
A small spark-
So small even the tinder barely feels it,
Prods itself deep into the nest.
It grows it's own angry roots,
It flickers them up the pile,
It consumes the nest in its
Small chance of survival.
It is overbearing.
So let me dash the fire with my fist-
Inhale the aroma of a chance-
Burn myself upon my hope.
---
A lost boy wanders in the woods,
Hoplessly lost without a clue what to do
He wanders eternally.
---
A young woman is curled upon her run down sofa,
Numbly wondering why his name can't get out of her head
She likes him
A lot
She just can't bring herself to spark a fire
She won't call his name
She closed herself off...
Again
-
A young man sits dumbfounded on the floor in the center of his room.
He can't understand why,
Why she won't feel the same
His passion is tender and transparent and his hope is ever-grasping
His soul is lost without guidance
His heart is lost without love.
-
So why must our love be broken my sweet...
Nov 29, 2016
Nov 29, 2016 at 11:54 PM UTC
I miss my old childhood room. With its dim lights and creaky bed. Turning off the lights and opening my old macbook. The fan inside it blowing hard and much too loud for two in the morning. I miss loading up a blocky game that lagged a little too much. Calling my friends on my phone and speaking in hushed shouts. Sneaking downstairs to grab a few cookies, making sure not to step on the fourth step (that's the one that creaked) and making sure not to crinkle the cookie package too much. Returning back to my room, placing both hands on the keys and forgetting about tomorrow. Playing that game with my friends until I finally noticed the sun peaking through my blinds and the warmth returning to the room. Hanging up the phone before my parents awoke and finally climbing under the covers. I miss my old childhood room and all the memories encased in its walls.
Feb 17, 2022
Feb 17, 2022 at 10:14 PM UTC